3-Stater

Really nothing happened this week that was momentous. Yes, we taught lessons and yes we did missionary work but nothing extraordinary happened. Pretty much everybody is in the same spot they were in last week. Except for maybe this one lady who's less active and we got her a large print triple combination and committed her to read the Book of Mormon everyday and to work on getting a current temple recommend. She hasn't been reading it everyday but she has been reading it. Also she cleaned up her front room which is usually a nasty mess. Was it because she started reading the scriptures more often? I don't know, at this point in time I'm not ruling anything out. It's not like the scriptures don't have the power to change somebody's life because they do. Which is why we read them everyday. :) Well, Darien didn't come to church yesterday even though he promised me he would. Dakota is in Arkansas for 2 weeks. Spence is still in the same spot he was in last week. Elder Skinner came over for exchanges and we went tracting and found a family who we set a return appointment with but they weren't home for the appointment. We stopped by another night and they weren't there again... We got a referral from our zone leaders a couple weeks ago, they OTM'd some people in Springfield and the people happened to live in Ava. We've contacted them and talked to them but we haven't been able to set something up yet. They told us to call them on Tuesday, so tomorrow we'll call them and set something up. We also got a new referral this morning we'll have to hit that up. The ward had their pioneer day party on Saturday night. There wasn't as big of a showing as they thought so now we have literally, hundreds of hot dogs in our freezed (we'll it's the church's freezer but we're taking them anyway). The only other big news is that we got transfer calls. I have never been so stressed out about something in my entire life. Normally we get transfer calls at around 9 but they didn't get in til like 9:30. I was a nervous wreck. I wouldn't mind staying in Ava for another transfer, or even if I was training I wouldn't mind staying for two more transfers but I just couldn't stay with my companion for another transfer. He's not even that bad, I just am kinda sick of having to do all the work by myself. He's also so weird and he just gets on my nerves sometimes. I feel bad because he totally has low self-esteem. I just don't see him as an adult, he's not immature, just kinda childish. Anyways we got the call and I'm going to Greenwood, Arkansas. This will make me a 3-stater. One more to go... I am split training what appears to be a big ol' poly dude. I am also the district leader in the biggest district I've been in my whole mission. It's really scary. Actually I just looked an it's actually the biggest district in the mission. Ya'll better pray for me. The good news is that Elder Bednar is coming to Fort Smith in September. There's a very high chance that I will be there when he comes because I'm in the Fort Smith zone. I'm super worried about Ava though. I don't want to sound mean but I'm not that confident in my companion's ability to take over this area. I have grown to really love the members here and the majority of the people that I've worked with. I didn't realize how much I did until I started saying goodbye to everybody on Sunday. It's a good thing that I'll be able to come back and visit pretty easily. Well that's about all folks. My new address is 1120 c Farley Cir Greenwood, AR 72936. Also Elder Skinner is training and he just barely finished training, he's a legend.

Love, Elder Naegle

a member caught me sleepi... I mean praying

Sin kills Jesus Saves

Pastor parking, we should have missionary parking.

Making books and burning cheesecake, I mean burning books and making cheesecake...

So this week, we made a cheesecake but we were too cheap to buy real butter so we bought margarine and then the crust didn't work the way it was supposed to. It still tasted good though.

We actually had a pretty good week this week. We were able to work hard and get some good lessons. We've been trying to work with the ward a lot better so we've been actively seeking out assignments from like the Bishop and the Relief Society president. So they gave us assignments and we completed both of them this week and then we're going to go see a bunch of people that Bishop wants us to go see on this upcoming Thursday. Also I forgot to tell you guys this last week but one day we were in the church and the relief society presidency was having their presidency meeting and we were in the room with them for some reason and they told us about their book case that they have a whole bunch of church books in. So I wanted to look at the church books so they gave me the keys and I looked at the books and there was this one book that was called the Mormon Hierarchy and that piqued my interest so I flipped through it and read some of the stuff that was in it and the Spirit immediately left so I closed the book and told the relief society president about it. Then a week or two later they were having presidency meeting again and we were there again for some reason and they asked me to get the book for them and so the relief society president took it and gave it to her husband and he looked up the author and then he decided to burn the book because the author apparently was a pretty anti dude. I wanted them to wait til we had dinner with them so that we could watch but they did it that same day. So the big thing that was going to happen was that my companion was going to go home. He had some issues that he had to take care of or something, he never told me what they were but I was going to go to Houston and stay with those Elders. So it was really hard to do work because I didn't want to set up a bunch of appointments only to have to cancel them because we didn't know what day he was going to go home. But on Wednesday President called and he wanted my companion to go and have an interview with one of the counselors in the mission presidency. So we drove all the way to Springfield and we actually went to my old building when I was there so that was pretty nostalgic I guess. So they had the interview and now he's not going home so that's that. 

That's pretty much it. Darien is out of town so we won't be able to see him for a while. Dakota was at scout camp, so we didn't see him. Honie got really mad at us for not showing up to an appointment even though we didn't have an appointment set and we hadn't seen her for like two weeks and we never said we were coming over. All that happened was she told one of her friends that they couldn't hang out or something because she was meeting with us so when we didn't show she flipped and now we probably won't see any more of her... ever. Today we all went to west plains for a zone outing and we filled nylon socks with flour and then threw them at each other. It was really fun but it was really hot and humid so when you're covered in flour and sweaty, it makes pancake batter! Then we had a big ol' bag of flour left over and Elder Cluff let me dump it on him because he is going home in less than two weeks. We got it on video. Transfer calls are this Saturday, this transfer has gone by really quickly. This morning we helped out some members and picked a bunch of potatoes for them. Then they made us whole wheat blueberry pancakes for breakfast and it was delicious. I am so sick of white pancakes, it was really refreshing. The other day we had some time in the early morning so we called up a member and told him we were coming over to do service. So we went over there and mowed his lawn and pulled up a bunch of dead flowers. It was good. I'm really trying hard to get the ward to really trust us and want to work with us more so it's been good that we've been able to do all this service.We went and saw Spence again, and we took Bro Michael because he's really smart. We talked a lot about the Holy Ghost and how it tells us what is truth because he likes to look at things intellectually so we shared 1 cor 1 which talks a lot about that kinda stuff and he's been thinking about it so we'll see where it goes. After church yesterday, one of the elders quorum members, who's 19, came up to us and asked us if we could teach him all the lessons. He said he didn't really know that much about the gospel and he didn't have the testimony that he would like to have. I bet that took a lot of humility for him to do that and it makes me really proud of him. So that will be really fun teaching him. Wow this was a long letter...

Peace, love and muscles.

Elder Naegle

                                        This cow is called a brauma (I don't know if that's how it's spelled) They have a hump on their neck. And really bad breath. It's weird.

This is what Alma was talking about when he said he was in the gall of bitterness...

Arkansas Bentonville Mission

The new name of the mission is the Arkansas Bentonville Mission so there you go Grandma and yes I've been getting your emails and your letters.

So this week was just another normal week. The only thing that stood out was that Darien got baptized! It was really good and spiritual and I had a little talk with Darien about the good feeling that he was having and about the Holy Ghost and whatnot. There was also this other thing that happened that will probably be a big change for me but it's not gonna happen for a little bit. You'll all find out when it does happen. We got to meet President Loveland and Sister Loveland and that was really good. I went on exchanges with Elder Dye and that was really good as well. Elder Osborne got sick and so we didn't do anything like all day yesterday, well actually we watched Ephraim's Rescue and it was really good. So I've been taking vitamin C to not get sick from my companion. We also had a lesson, with this guy we found last week. He is very interested in history. He basically believes and agrees with everything we say but it's all for the intent of history. It's weird. He said he studied the Book of Mormon for 2 years trying to prove it false and he couldn't so we'll see where that goes. We're gonna take one of our members over there who is very learned this week and maybe hopefully he'll get baptized we'll see. Then there's a 13 year old named Dakota who we're teaching at the house of Bro Wilber (he's the one who builds Buffalo Wild Wings among other things for a living). They're the awesomest people and members of the church. He'll probably be baptized pretty soon. He believes everything that we teach him. So things are going pretty good.

Love, Elder Naegle

Fireworks

This last week was pretty good. The mission goal was to hit double the standard of excellence which would mean 40 lessons. We got 10... But it's all good. For the most part I can look back on the week and say that I worked hard throughout, even if it doesn't show in our number of lessons. We ended up dropping Honie because she's not going anywhere and I'm fairly certain the only reason that she meets with us is because she thinks it's social hour and because she has nobody else to talk to. Maybe in a couple of months she'll be ready but I don't think she is right now. We had some good lessons with less actives this week though. Mostly only one, we talked to this guy who actually is less active, not inactive. He doesn't really have a solid testimony of the Church having the fulness of the gospel but he likes the church. We talked about patriarchal blessings and it went really well. He said he's gonna talk to his friends about it (they're active members don't worry) and then maybe the Bishop. He's actually dating a lady from Texas who's super active in the Church so I think that's going to help him out a lot and he's good friends with a lot of active members. That's one thing that the Ava ward is really good at is fellow-shipping, it really is like a great big family. One day we were just sitting in the foyer of the church talking to a kid who's gonna be going on his mission really soon and a random lady came up to the door and asked for help because she said that they were on a half tank of gas and they lost their debit card and whatnot. Well me being in missionary mode was like 'sure we'll definitely figure out a way to help you out.' And the kid, who's name is Gabe, is a super nice guy so he wanted to help too. So we called Bishop and he said there was really nothing they could do for these people. So we told them and they were like ok and they took off. Then all three of us were like, I'm pretty sure that they were lying. I remember I asked him if he knew anything about the Church and he was like "more than you know." I don't know if he was saying he knew more than I thought he knew, or he was saying he knew more than I knew, but whatever he meant, that when red flags started going up and I'm pretty sure the Holy Ghost was like: hold up. So the gift of the Holy Ghost is a real thing. We also went tracting this week. We knocked on this dude's door and we had a nice little discussion. He knew about the Book of Mormon, in fact he had studied it for 2 years with the intent to prove it wrong. He really likes history so he looks at it from a historical angle. He knew all sorts of archaeological evidence that would support the Book of Mormon which was neat. We talked about agency and what we believe happens after death. He thought those were very interesting. He said he wasn't a Christian because, from what I understand he got offended by some preacher. But we set up an appointment with him and we got his phone number and everything so we'll see where it goes. Then we were eating at Pizza Hut for dinner and a lady came up to us and asked what happened to some missionaries that apparently served here a couple of months ago, although her description doesn't match any of the Elders that served here since they got Elders, because I actually know all the missionaries who have served here since August. But apparently some missionaries knocked on her door and they had a great discussion. So she's either telling the truth or the missionaries stopped by, she bashed them and they never came back. So she's gonna call us and set up a time. If there's a preacher there when we show up we're gonna turn around and leave. That's pretty much all that happened this week. President and Sister Shumway are gone. We get to meet President and Sister Loveland tomorrow. This next week is looking to be a really good one. Last night we had dinner at an awesome family's house, and we stayed there for 4 hours while he told us about what he did on his mission to find great success. He was a solo zone leader for the last 8 months on his mission and their transfers were only 30 days and every 30 days he got a brand new missionary. He said he trained 7 missionaries as a zone leader. It was nuts. We're hopefully going to be able to implement the  things that he taught us and work with him a lot more closely because he knows most if not all the less actives in the ward. The only problem is that he's super busy. He's got 7 little kids and the company that he started has a contract to build Buffalo Wild Wings and Orange Leafs all over the place. He's only 37.

We also had a nerf war and watched fireworks with the family that we live with. 

Love, Elder Naegle